DESCRIPTION: This application seeks partial funding for a Gordon Research Conference on Microbial Stress Responses' to be held at New England College (Henniker, New Hampshire), 2-7 August 1998. This will be the third meeting of this Gordon Conference, which is now on the permanent conference list. The meeting will address the biochemical and genetic systems, in both prokaryotic and eukaryotic microbes, that respond to various types of physiological stress. The types of stress covered will include starvation, DNA damage, host pathogen, oxidation, ions, extremes of pH, and metals. Approaches to the global analysis of stress responses will be presented as well comparisons of complex sensing systems. The evolutionary significance of such adaptations will be considered, as will their implications for medicine and biotechnology. The meeting will be heavily weighted toward discussions involving all the participants, with about one-third of the schedule time set aside for this purpose. Additionally, poster sessions and the addition of some shorter talks from the submitted abstracts will maximize the involvement of all the attendees, particularly younger scientists. This meeting provides an important opportunity for this important interdisciplinary field.